dirty joke

dirty joke

A joke, story, or anecdote characterized by lewd, smutty, or otherwise indecent subject matter. My grandmother was the sweetest old lady imaginable, but she had this curious fondness for telling dirty jokes.

dirty joke

A smutty story, as in Teenagers love to tell dirty jokes. The use of dirty in the sense of "obscene" or "indecent" dates from the late 1500s, but its application to a joke began only in the 20th century. The same sense also appears in such expressions as dirty book, for a pornographic book; dirty old man, for a middle-aged or elderly lecher; and dirty word or talk dirty, for a lewd, offensive expression or sexually explicit conversation.

From the opening scene where two nerdy high school friends carry on a sexually explicit conversation (that clearly has more to do with their fantasies than their actual experiences), this is one long dirty joke.

Gays especially were progressive in politics, skeptical about America's past, demonstrative against the war in Vietnam; we were a group eager to travel, to read, to learn, to throw off our childhood conditioning that had stigmatized pleasure and made love between men a dirty joke or shameful secret.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.